An interesting picture posted once a day, week, or whenever I feel like it.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Hand holding the 800

I finally had the chance to spend some serious time with the 1D Mark IV. Just to change things up a bit, I decided to leave the Wimberley at home, opting instead to hand hold my 800mm lens. The lens weighs about 10 lbs, the body another 3 lbs or so. Now 13 lbs may not seem like a lot but trying it at eye level as steady as possible for a few minutes...

I walked around for about 2 hours photographing various subjects. The light was very good and the Ibis (pictured above) was co-operative resulting in some of my best Ibis images so far this year.

Since I've been shooting mostly on a tripod with my Wimberley this year, I'd forgotten how refreshing hand held bird photography can be. Being able to move quickly to follow a subject and being able to very pick point in the direction of new action is great. It isn't without challenges though. At that focal length, it takes a lot of effort to keep the AF point on the intended part of your subject, not to mention things like shake.

The Black Phoebe above was taken at 1/500s at f/7.1 and ISO 400. Here is a view of the actual pixels.